Saints and sinners
Six-try Northampton run riot as 2023 starts on sour note for Quins
HARLEQUINS ended 2022 with defeat and their disgraced prop Joe Marler banned, but the new year began in even worse fashion
This was a shocker for Tabai Matson’s men. it is hard to remember a worse quins display.
Phil Dowson’s saints sent a soldout home crowd home happy with a convincing bonus-point success although the margin of victory should have been far greater.
northampton made a mess of at least three clear try- scoring opportunities but still scored six.
arriving for his post-match press conference, quins head coach Matson attempted to squeeze what he thought was sanitiser on his hands. it was sunscreen.
‘That sums up the night,’ said Matson, who has had a Christmas to forget. a shock home defeat by Bristol was followed by Marler’s two-week ban for insulting the mother of Bears forward Jake Heenan. Things got even worse as his team imploded.
‘ i hope Joe wasn’t made a scapegoat for something and a clear mandate is handed down from above,’ said Matson.
‘I don’t know if the Joe kerfuffle complicated our preparation, but it was nothing to do with tonight.
‘We’ve got to find out why we played like that and Joe’s absence was not a part of it. We were lucky to be 16 points down at half-time.
‘We failed on a number of levels and if we put in a performance like that against sale then we will get another shellacking.’
Northampton dominated from first to last. Without Marler, quins were dismantled at the scrum.
Alex Waller got saints up and running and James ramm was set up by a brilliant Fin smith pass.
Tommy allan kicked a quins penalty but saints were rampant. ramm got his second after a drop from quins’ andre esterhuizen.
Alex Mitchell, sam Matavesi and Waller all had further opportunities for home tries which went begging. not that it mattered.
‘You are always going to leave some tries out there,’ said saints director of rugby Dowson, who confirmed Courtney lawes is near to return from a glute injury. ‘We have got loads of work to do but the players have been brilliant and i’m delighted. The most enjoyable things for me were the breakdown and the defence.’
Northampton’s side is packed full of england hopefuls. in the back line George Furbank, Freeman and Fraser Dingwall excelled. up front, lewis ludlam and David ribbans did the hard work.
Northampton lost promising fly-half smith to a head injury at the break. Furbank stepped in with Freeman moving to full back and three tries followed.
Furbank kicked his goals and lukhan salakaia-loto grabbed the fourth score after quins lost alex Dombrandt to a yellow card. When rory Hutchinson walked in the fifth, fireworks lit up the sky.
It was too easy. Jordan els and nick David grabbed consolations.
Harlequins must hope 2023 gets better. The imminent return of flyhalf Marcus smith from an ankle injury is one cause for cheer.